I'm pretty excited for this game, although I'm sure I won't be able to play as much as I'd like. Still though, I think it might be fun to play with BZPower members. If you're planning on picking up Halo 5, feel free to join the group!

I had the pleasure of going up to PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts from March 6th to 8th. As always, it was a blast and it was great to hang out with Than the Moa and Watashi Wa and meet a couple of WaWa's friends. I thought for a change I'd endeavor to take some more pictures and blog about it and share some of my experiences.

The LinesPAX East is famous for its massive lines for everything. When you cram 70,000 or more people into a single space, you're going to have to wait for stuff. It's not unusual for people to line up for panels over an hour in advance, and lines to play popular upcoming games like Overwatch take two hours or more. With the lines being such an iconic part of the event, I decided that would be the focus of what I share. If you follow me on Twitter you probably saw some of my tweets rating the lines and sharing pictures. Below is a little more of the same, but not constrained to 140 characters.

I was able to snag a Media badge for the event, which meant Friday morning I got to wait in the very short Media/VIP line. By PAX standards it was pretty tame, and meant I got to check out the show floor before most people. No regrets!

Saturday, on the other hand, I had to line up with everyone else to get into the expo floor. The reason so many people line up is so they can rush in and get lined up for things like Oculus Rift, Gigantic, Overwatch, and other multi-hour waits. I was trying to line up for Rooster Teeth, but when I got to the booth they weren't even there.

I didn't make the same mistake on Sunday and decided to wait and have some breakfast and not go into the expo floor until after the lines cleared. I snapped this from one of the catwalks that crosses the expo floor on the second level. Yes, there are a LOT of people...

A much smaller and faster-moving line was the one to get swag bags. The bags were a bit disappointing this year, only containing the program guide, a deck of Magic cards, a promotional Superfight card, and some ads. Oh well.

Overwatch

I definitely took advantage of my early media access on Friday by going to play Overwatch, the FPS being made by Blizzard. Yes you heard that right. The gameplay was tight and certainly seems like it's getting ready for release. I only played three or four of the different classes, and of those, McCree was by far my favorite. I'm intrigued to play more when it comes out.

Harmonix

The day before PAX East started, they announced Rock Band 4! The game wasn't on display, but you could preorder an exclusive PAX East guitar controller, which I did. They also had Amplitude available to play, which was interesting, but I definitely need more time to really learn it, and not play with a group of people that cranked the difficulty up to expert.

Gabe and Tycho

We caught part of the Gabe and Tycho panel where they basically spent an hour answering people's questions and making us all laugh. As the minds behind Penny Arcade and PAX, it's great to see that they stay so involved with their fans.

Rooster Teeth

The reason we caught Gabe and Tycho was because we wanted to get good seats for the Rooster Teeth panel, which we succeeded at! The panel was pretty great and we got to see some awesome videos, including the Red vs Blue Season 13 teaser, a Minecraft Let's Play rap (the content of which isn't really BZP-safe), some rough work for the next season of X-Ray and Vav, and a hilarious Funhaus video. The Q&A sessions were a bit groan-worthy at times, but overall I had fun as always.

Rooster Teeth Line

Of course I also wanted to go to the Rooster Teeth booth to buy some stuff and get them to sign other stuff. Any time Jack, Adam, and Jordan were there though, the line was super-long. I probably went by the booth fifteen times all told seeing if they were there, and if they were, trying to get in line. It was frequently capped though, and when I'd go back to see if it was uncapped I ended up missing the opportunity. Eventually I got in though, and scored some swag and got some signatures.

Halo Cosplay

One time while I was walking by the Microsoft booth a group of Halo cosplayers had gathered. Those costumes are incredible and I wish I had the time and talent to make one of my own.

Major Nelson Radio

Another staple of PAX East for me is the Major Nelson podcast panel. The whole crew was there, consisting of Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb, Eric 'e' Neustadter, Laura 'lollip0p' Massey, and Jeff 'Jef United' Rubenstein. They were joined by Eric Pope of Harmonix to talk about Rock Band 4 and Jeff from Undead Labs to talk about State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition. It was a great show and I definitely enjoyed it.

Halo Championship Series Season 1 Finals

By a stroke of luck, after I finally decided to go to PAX East, 343 and ESL announced that the finals of Season 1 of the Halo Championship Series, the competitive Halo e-sports league, would be held at the event. I've been a competitive Halo fan since 2003 or 2004, so I was super-stoked by this. It had been a while since I had been to a LAN competition in person (honestly it has been a while since competitive Halo was really worth watching) so I made a point to watch as much of the event as I could. I was not disappointed, as the nine teams (top eight seeds and a wildcard from Europe) all put on a great show. The Losers Bracket Finals was quite possibly the best series I've ever seen in the history of the game. CLG went down 2-0 to Noble Black but then tied up the series at 2-2. Game 5 would decide the winner and who would go play in the championship match for a grand prize of $50,000. And then the two teams tied! The official rules stated that there would be a shortened replay of the game, in this case Shrine (Sanctuary) Team Slayer, but that ended up in a tie too. Long story short, the two teams tied four times total before CLG finally won to advance. The crowd at the event was massive and everyone was on the edge of their seat watching (if they had a seat - there were so many people it was standing room only). Even though CLG ended up losing to Evil Geniuses in the finals, it was amazing to be there in person and feel the energy of hundreds of other Halo fans all cheering when a sick play was made. It was definitely the highlight of my weekend and a memory I hope to never forget.

All in all PAX East 2015 was a rousing success. There were a lot of other things I did that didn't make it above, like Elite Dangerous with Oculus Rift, a bunch of indie games, the Harmonix party, and good times with friends. If you're a fan of gaming, I definitely recommend making it to a PAX event at some point, as they're second to none.

LEGO Elves is one of the few brand new themes coming out in 2015, based off of the minidoll figures first seen in the LEGO Friends line. While ostensibly the sets are marketed at young girls, we all know that LEGO is LEGO and you can buy what you like. The teaser site suggests there will be some story and possibly a TV show, and the sets we've seen in the 2015 catalog have a distinct fantasy feel with lots of new and recolored pieces.

Are you interested in this theme? What aspects are you most excited about? Or are there things you're not really a big fan of that turn you off to it?

In case you were wondering, I never said I was going to post these every Sunday.

Mailbag

1: If you could be any character in any movie, who would you be and why?

2: What's your favorite color?

3: On a scale from 0 to 10, how exciting is it to be Black Six? (zero being dreadful and ten being the most awesome thing ever)

4: How did you or the artist of your avatar come up with the character's design?

1. Tough question. I might have to go with Indiana Jones, because he's awesome.2. Blue. No, yellllllow!3. 6 (See what I did there?)

Just a few questions:

1. Will you ever update the content blocks of your blog?2. Does this question exist?3. What do you do for a living outside BZP?

1. Yes.2. Yes.3. I'm a computer engineer working for the U.S. Army.

To: Black SixYou are the “Lego Ambassador”. How is our relationship with Lego going? How do they communicate with us? Do they just call you into a convention and hand out sets to review or do they listen to what you have to say? Or both? Do they think we are a bit crazy for existing now that Bionicle is dead? Pulling back the curtain on that would be interesting.

fishers64

fishers wins with this outstanding suggestion for a Behind BZP.

Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line.

Being an AmbassadorI had to go back and look it up, but I've been BZPower's Ambassador since June 2008. That's actually shorter than I expected, because it feels like I've been doing this for a while. But since I'm pretty sure that means I've been an Ambassador longer than Kelly was, I guess I'm the best person to talk on the subject.

To start I'll answer fisher's questions: Our relationship with LEGO is great. You can tell this because they spend so much time hanging out with us at fan events. At BrickFair Alabama this year I'd estimate we spent at least a third of the convention time hanging out with Jim Foulds and/or Kevin Hinkle. We talked about LEGO and Bionicle, of course, but also life, the universe, and everything.

There's a bunch of ways they communicate with us. Obviously there's the fan events. Then there's a set of forums LEGO uses for the Ambassadors and other fan projects. Sometimes Kevin or Jim will just email me too if there's something specific they'd like to know. They definitely listen. They want to know how BZPower is dealing with Bionicle being canceled, what we think of Hero Factory and other lines they're working on, and what we're doing to keep the spirit alive. As far as sets to review - we don't get those because I'm an Ambassador. LEGO sends us those because BZPower is still a large LEGO news and community site with a large reach.

They certainly don't think we're crazy for existing. They understand how big of a line Bionicle was and is for many of us. Fun fact: Kevin Hinkle's son still plays Bionicle Heroes, so he's in the know when it comes to our universe. They want to understand what we're doing and how we're reacting and then do what they can to help the community continue to thrive.

As far as the Ambassador program as a whole goes, these days it's kind of a nebulous concept. Back in the day (before I was selected) LEGO hand picked people from the community to give feedback and help give input on new LEGO themes. It was all under an NDA and very hush-hush. When I first joined, they were transitioning to a new mode of operations. There were several projects that Ambassadors could sign up for that were designed to help the community. There were also periodic calls for feedback and just general discussions with Ambassadors asking questions of LEGO.

The projects idea failed when too few of the Ambassadors were actively participating in them and LEGO was unable to provide the level of support we were expecting. So the program shifted to focus more on the discussion and feedback. A couple of times they've tried to encourage Ambassadors to start their own projects, but that's never really gotten off the ground.

All the while LEGO has been letting in more Ambassadors, most of whom rarely post or give off any signs of activity. But with more people come more questions, and the LEGO Community Team doesn't have the time usually to answer everything. As a result, the program has stagnated a bit, which is why you haven't heard anything about it from me of late. LEGO assures us that they're working on things though, so we'll see.

And hopefully that was elucidating, even if it wasn't as exciting as you might have thought. Remember, if you have something you'd like to see me talk about, just drop me a PM!

As I discussed last week, I was thinking of ending my Weekly Update series. And I am. Last week was the last one. It had become too much of recap of the news than anything substantial. You can get the same content from reading the front page.

So I'm trying something new - 'Behind BZP' - where I'll pull back the curtain a little on the things the staff an I do. It won't be every week, but I'll be doing it as often as I can think of things. If you have something you'd like to see me talk about send me a PM and let me know.

Recording the PowercastThere's a lot that goes into recording an episode of the Powercast, which is why they're every month and not every week or something crazy like that. Let's see how it goes.

So that's how I sound so good, but there's a lot of software involved to get everyone else on the show. Once we decide on a topic and who's involved, we use Skype to talk to each other. I record that conversation using Audio Hijack Pro.

After all the segments have been recorded, I open them up with Audacity. For some reason I've yet to determine, my mic only gets recorded on the left channel while everyone else goes on both the left and right. I use Audacity to split the two channels, get rid of the right, and save it as a mono-track file. I then run it through Levelator to even out the volumes of all the different speakers and to help remove noise. This saves me from actually having to do a lot of advanced audio editing.

Then I pop open Garageband. All the tracks get brought in, I cut and splice things together to get rid of awkward pauses and some of the 'ums' and 'ands' and such. This helps make the show flow better when you're listening. Around now I'll record the intro and outro pieces too. Once all the audio is in place, I add in the transitions. Then I listen through the whole thing (again) and adjust the levels so the volume doesn't change dramatically between segments. Finally, the metadata gets added and I export it into iTunes.

The file then gets uploaded to BZPower, I edit the XML file with the new episode, and post a news story.

Pretty simple, right?

Oh, and since I still have some questions, here's a Mailbag. I'll keep doing these if you guys keep sending questions.

Mailbag

1. Best Doctor? (Sorry if you've answered this before!)2. What is your favorite BZPower fad?3. Least favorite?4. Favorite internet-wide meme? Least favorite?5. Have you played Cave Story? If so, what did you think?6. Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself?7. Will you consider on purpose a train at some point in the future?

-Canama

1. Hmm. I think I'd say David Tennant, even though Matt Smith is quite awesome.2. There've been so many they all blend together.3. The ponies are starting to get a little old.4. Lolcats for sure. Rickrolling might be my least.5. Nope.6. By definition it can't.7. Sure?

What's your favourite:

1. Rahkshi power?2. Mask power?3. Toa element?

1. Invulnerability2. X-ray vision3. Fire

Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line.

I hope you all enjoyed that. Please let me know if you did! And let me know if there's other things you want me to discuss here.

Key:Shipped! - Prizes are on their way!Packaged - Prizes have been boxed up.Sorted - Prizes have been separated from my stash and are ready to be packaged.Pending - Prizes are the next to be shipped.On hold - Prizes are waiting for other contest prizes to be shipped.